Doorway to Darkness
by InvisibleJediMaster
Summary: Vlad used Danny to open a strange Door, unleashing darkness on Amity Park. The world is rapidly consumed and the only three survivors appear in Traverse Town. The King informs Sora that stars are winking out again and the Keyblade Bearer is needed.
1. The Door

This is the continuation of one of my plot bunnies, 'The Door,' shown in 'One Shots and Plot Bunnies,' a set of Danny Phantom one shots and plot bunnies.

* * *

Plasmius flew through the Ghost Zone with the Infi-Map, which he'd stolen again, in search for a source of greater power for himself. The map led him to the far reaches of the Ghost Zone that were almost never frequented. No other real landmarks were in sight, though there were random floating islands in the area that all seemed of similar size a feature. All were tiny pieces of barren rock that, if he so wished, Plasmius could sit or stand on. Even these were few and far between, though they seemed frequent considering there was nothing else around. Until the Infi-Map led the older, malevolent half-ghost to his goal, that is.

On a much larger island than the others stood a single door, constructed of what appeared to be a solid brown wood with a rounded wooden frame. There was no handle on this door, no latch, no finger-groove; there seemed to be no means of opening it at all.

Plasmius landed on the floating island, rolling up the Infi-Map in his hands as he did so, and approached the strange door.

"This will lead me to power?" he muttered to himself, the way he always does. He touched the door and, finding that it did not automatically summon defensive measures to divert him as some doors and passages in the Ghost Zone did, proceeded to run his hand across its surface and along the edge of the door. Still he could find no way of opening it. Pushing on it yielded no result, and neither did his attempt to blast the door open. In fact, when Plasmius had floated away from the door for appropriate blasting range and then blasted it, the door seemed to be covered in a reflective sheen, which dissipated when the blast's energy did, revealing absolutely no change. The blast hadn't done anything to the door at all. "Cheese logs!" Vlad swore when he saw this. He then flew around the door in hopes of finding a clue on the other side. What greeted him was a hazy, impenetrable darkness blocked by some sort of strange shield that revealed itself as a light sheen when he attempted to penetrate it. Stumped, Plasmius walked back around to the face of the door and noticed a stone plaque that hadn't been present moments ago. There was strange text on the top section of the plaque and the rest of the space was occupied by the picture of a strange large key. As Vlad peered at the foreign text, it suddenly shifted with an eye-bending wave and became English.

Vlad read aloud to himself;

"'The path is locked

By the Key;

The one of pure heart,

The one of power,

To hold back the Dark.

Thus it is opened.

Be cautious;

World's Heart at risk.'

"Well what does that mean!? Butter buns, I can't open it..." As Vlad turned away from the plaque, it vanished, though he did not notice. "So who can...? Of course...," Plasmius said with a fanged smile and an almost hiss.

Plasmius, as he was returning to his portal, decided to buzz past the Far Frozen again in order to try provoking action if he hadn't already by stealing the Map in the first place.

* * *

Danny was in the park with Sam and Tucker when his ghost sense went off with a particularly strong burst of cold inside him. He immediately rolled to his feet and leapt behind a tree to transform. After the signature flash of light and an "I'm going ghost!" he reappeared as Danny Phantom and returned to his friends, doing a 360 to search for the ghost also.

"Young Danny, it is me, Frostbite of the Far Frozen!"

"Frostbite?" Danny lowered his glowing green hands and allowed the energy to dissipate back through his body as his eyes met the form of the familiar, and more importantly non-malevolent, ghost Frostbite. "What brings you here?" The two shared a frozen handshake that caused Sam and Tucker to shived with "Not more ice training, right?" (Frostbite had come to Phantom one day soon after the Undergrowth incident to give Danny better training of that particular power.)

"No Danny. I have come to request help. Plasmius has stolen the Infi-Map from us, and we fear it is not for a good purpose."

"What!? He _stole_ the Infi-Map? But don't you guys guard it?"

"We do guard it, but several of us were in another part of the Far Frozen attending the Ice Sculpting Competition, and he took advantage of our distraction, using it to overpower us and steal it. He declared intentions of gaining more power but was no more specific than that."

"Of course he wants more power..." Phantom growled to himself. He was silent for a moment, thinking about what to do.

"I'll come back to the Far Frozen with you. Vlad usually has to come back and do something."

"Returning to the scene of the crime?" Tucker commented.

"Do you want to come too?" Danny aimed back at his two best friends.

"Of course! We'll follow you in the Specter Speeder."

Phantom turned back to Frostbite. "We'll be at the portal in a few minutes. Is that okay?"

"I shall wait for you there, young one." Frostbite disappeared, presumably to return to the portal in the Fenton basement/ghost lab.

Phantom grabbed Sam and Tucker and turned invisible, taking off to fly them back to their houses. He went to Tucker's first, landing in his room.

"Get cold weather clothes, because we're going to the Far Frozen, and it's really cold there." Tucker grabbed a thick heavy jacket and pulled it on loosely. Sam did the same when they went to her house, and then they were back at Danny's house.

"Can you distract our parents? I need to go into the Ghost Zone with the Specter Speeder," Phantom whispered into Jazz's ear. Jazz was currently studying at the kitchen table with open books and notebooks. Jack and Maddie Fenton were down in the lab working, which Danny discovered when he flew down there invisibly, giving him the need for Jazz's distraction.

Jazz jumped, still not used to Danny's cold whispers in her ear while he was an invisible ghost, whispers that were usually, like this one, requests for a distraction.

"How long do you need?" Jazz responded quietly.

"Just a few minutes."

"Mom! Dad! Can I talk to you? I have a question about ghosts!" Footsteps up the stairs could be heard almost immediately.

"Thanks, Jazz," Danny whispered again. Jazz, expecting it, managed to only twitch this time.

Danny's parents appeared at the top of the stairs just as Danny flew invisibly down to the lab through the wall with his two friends still in hand.

"What's your question, sweetie?" Danny heard his mom say from down in the lab. Then he wasn't paying attention to what was happening upstairs. Sam and Tucker got in the Specter Speeder while Danny located and tossed at them the Fenton Phones. He placed one in his own ear as Frostbite appeared next to the portal.

"Let's go," Danny said, and everyone was off through the Ghost Zone to the Far Frozen.

* * *

"So this is what it's like here," Sam said, looking around at the snowy landscape from outside the Specter Speeder.

Danny hadn't told either of his friends much about the place because he didn't tell them much about the Undergrowth incident at all. Sam _had_ had turned into the evil plant caretaker.

"Plasmius doesn't seem to have returned, yet." No sooner were the words out of Danny's mouth than the evil halfa did appear, waving the map in the air and taunting the Far Frozen inhabitants with it.

"Plasmius!" Danny shouted as he shot towards the arrogant fiend.

"Oooh, my day just gets better and better!" he said as he fired and ecto-blast at Phantom, which was dodged, and dodged the returned ecto-blast from the young halfa.

"Return the Infi-Map, Plasmius!"

"Catch me if you can, Daniel!" Vlad shot off laughing madly.

"Come on," Danny tossed back at his friends, who were back in the Specter Speeder, ready for the chase. The three took off together as Frostbite and the other Far Frozen inhabitants watched.

* * *

"Where are we even going?" Tucker asked in a bored voice. The last real Ghost Zone land mark had been passed over ten minutes ago.

"I've never been this far in before," Phantom commented. He was still in ghost form, but he'd returned to sit in the Specter Speeder after the first ten minutes of chasing Vlad. They'd been chasing him for over an hour. "You're recording out course, right Tucker?"

"Yes," Tucker yawned, not even bothering to check the ship log, which was still running.

"I wonder where he's leading us," Sam voiced. They'd figured that Vlad was leading them somewhere some time ago. They thought it might've been Clockwork's Tower, but that had passed by in the distance a while ago. Now all they could see was small desolate islands that were spread thinly about the area. Danny figured they only got as big as a chair, though he never paused to test the irrelevant theory.

Sam suddenly sat up. "Hey, what's that?"

"Did we arrive?" Tucker asked eagerly, also perking up a bit and looking ahead.

Danny stood and flew through the front of the Specter Speeder. "It looks like a door."

"A door?"

"Yeah. A plain, brown, wooden door. Odd." Danny went up to inspect it, overcome by curiosity momentarily, and was followed by Sam and Tucker, who parked the Specter Speeder alongside the edge of the larger floating island.

"_The path..."_ came a voice quieter than a whisper, though the three of them all still heard it.

This was confirmed when Danny asked if they heard the voice and they nodded affirmatively.

"Hey, where'd Plasmius go?" Sam observed.

Plasmius blasted Phantom in the side at that very moment. "Fool!" He reappeared. "You followed me all the way out here! Now you aren't going to escape me!"

This of course, caused a fight between the two halfas. Though Danny didn't notice, Vlad maneuvered himself so he first caused Danny to crash into the door, which started glowing with a golden light around the edges, and then caused Danny to shoot the door with a great deal of his own energy. The door responded with an increased brightness on one edge, obviously the opening edge. Vlad started cackling again as everyone's attention was caught.

"_The path is open..."_ came the strange voice that the three friends heard.

Danny shot forward suddenly, ecto-punching Vlad and stealing the Infi-Map. Vlad screamed in fury and sudden attention.

"_Beware the Darkness..."_ The voice seemed to trail off this time, as the door swung wide. The deceptive light at the edge vanished as the door opened to a deep darkness that started leaking out of the doorway past the frame. A strong gust of wind came pouring forth, and no one could resist it completely as Phantom and Plasmius were grounded and all four people were slowly pushed back.

Danny glanced back at the nearing edge of the island and saw that the darkness spilling forth from the doorway was surrounding the island and expanding. Something deep within his being and those of his friends feared for their very selves because of the darkness. If they were to fall into it...each feared they wouldn't return.

The wind suddenly gusted stronger and everyone was lifted off their feet. The Specter Speeder had been consumed by the darkness and the Infi-Map was blown from Danny's hands back the way they'd come, far out of sight.

Danny, more concerned with his friends, caught both of them and landed further back from the door on a larger island that the three of them could stand side by side on. Plasmius landed on a smaller island closer to the door. The expanding darkness reached him first.

Danny, Sam, and Tucker watched, rooted to their floating island, as the darkness surrounded Vlad and then started creeping up on the island itself. Tendrils started climbing around his feet and his expression changed from one of fear and apprehension to one of delight.

"So this is the power the map meant!" He started cackling as the darkness rose to cover him and he fell down into the pool at his feet. He vanished, and his island disintegrated under the darkness onslaught.

The three had been watching Vlad and Danny in particular had been watching and also remembering what he did to the door, realizing that he'd opened it for Vlad. Vlad had tricked him. Then something viscous covered his feet and his friends' feet. They looked down, alarmed to see that while they'd been watching Vlad, the darkness had reached them. And now they couldn't escape.

They all tried, Danny the hardest of all, but it was futile. The darkness rose to envelop the three of them. They tried to hold each other's hands tightly so they wouldn't be separated, but the tendrils of darkness worked their way through fingers and between hands, effectively separating them. No one heard the screams of fright that were covered by the darkness as the three disappeared far from any hope of rescue. Their island also was eaten away by the darkness, like everything else the expanding wave came across.

* * *

Danny sensed that he was falling, though he couldn't see anything, hear anything, or feel anything. He didn't even seem to be breathing, though when he was in ghost mode that wasn't as unusual for him. He had the feeling that Sam and Tucker in the same place as him, wherever that was, though they were not actually there and Danny had a feeling that they were nowhere nearby.

'How can that be?' Danny thought to himself. 'Here but not here.'

And then his feet touched down on a platform, he had the sudden feeling that he was standing upright instead of falling back, and the darkness shattered away from the platform he was standing on, the fragments turning into white birds that quickly disappeared into the dark landscape.

Danny looked down from the birds he could no longer see and could do nothing but gasp.


	2. Three Choices

Danny stood upon a giant stained glass platform light from below. It featured him in the center, his two forms back to back, standing confidently. His ghost half had one hand up, enveloped in a sphere of green energy. His human half had hands resting on the top of an odd looking weapon. It seemed like a large metal rod with a hand grip and guard at one end and something rather like a blade at the other. The handgrip, upon which his hand rested, was black; the rod was white; the blade at the end was a vibrant green and seemed to have been frozen in mid-motion, as if it were never still. Dangling off a chain from the black guard was a silver charm that looked like the the logo on the chest of his ghost persona. On both of Danny's faces was an amused grin, as if they were laughing at a secret joke. To the right of the human Danny were two large circles that showed his friends' faces and three slightly smaller circles that showed his parents and sister with a few other yet smaller circles showing other friends; to the left of the ghost Danny were several circles of his ghostly friends, including Wolf, Dani, and Clockwork. They were all surrounded in a big ring that seemed made of snapshots of all of Danny's memorable fights. Dan from the future was at the top left of the circle while Plasmius occupied the top right. Below the feet of both Dannys at the bottom of the circle was the swirling green vortex of the portal. The top of the ring seemed empty.

'What is this?' Danny thought to himself as he looked at the finely detailed floor. The strange weapon his human half held caught his eye again. 'Why would I be holding a weapon I've never seen before?'

Three pillars of light appeared around him and three pedestals rose from the floor. There was a sword, a wand or staff thing, and a shield on them. Danny walked up to the sword first and saw in inscription on the pedestal below the floating weapon.

_The power of the warrior.  
Invincible courage.  
A sword of terrible destruction._

Danny walked around to the wand and saw it also held an inscription.

_The power of the mystic.  
Inner strength.  
A staff of wonder and ruin._

He took it up in his hand out of curiosity and heard the voice again.

_"Is this what you choose?"_

The wand didn't feel right in Danny's hands, so he put it back and walked to the shield to see that inscription.

_The power of the guardian.  
Kindness to friends.  
A shield to repel all._

Having a feeling that the shield wasn't right either, Danny went back to the sword and took it, again hearing the voice ask, _"Is this what you choose?"_

"Yes..." The sword vanished from his hands.

_"What will you give up in exchange?"_

Danny went promptly to the wand and took it from the pedestal.

_"Is this what you choose?"_

"Yes," Danny answered, more sure of himself though he still had no idea what was going on or where he was. The wand vanished like the sword had, and all the pedestals sank back into the floor. When said floor shattered beneath him, Danny tried to fly so he wouldn't fall, but found that he couldn't and that, when he landed safely on another floor that appeared beneath him, didn't need to. The design of the floor was the same as the last one had been

"_The door has been opened again."_

The wooden door from before appeared, opened to darkness, and vanished after a moment.

_"These are the enemies you will face."_

Where the door had been, on the floor was an agitated pool of darkness. A few small creatures rose from it, entirely black but with glowing yellow eyes, and large antennae. The seemed rather like bugs, Danny thought. The pool of darkness disappeared from under them, the sword from before appeared again in his hand, and the creatures attacked him.

The creatures were weak but Danny, new to the sword, had a moment's difficulty fighting them. Particularly when one sank flat to the floor and tried to ambush him, since he couldn't hit it when it did that.

The floor shattered again and Danny landed on the third platform with sword still in hand.

_"Beware, for when there is light, shadows are born."_

Danny watched as his shadow became much more dense than it should have, lengthened, and then rose from the floor. It was a black doppleganger. The doppleganger grew a bit and turned into the form of Dan for a moment, then it grew to monstrous size. When it started attacking him, Danny really wished he could use his ghost powers so he could fly and get at the thing's head, but he had to suffice with attacking the hands because he couldn't do anything to the feet.

Periodically the little shadows would appear and attack him, or the giant shadow would summon a sphere of energy and use that against him, but eventually Danny won the fight and the creature fell.

_"The greater the light in the darkness, the greater the shadows will be."_

Another pool of the viscous shadows appeared beneath Danny's feet and the sword vanished from his hand. The darkness swallowed him again and Danny's last thought before he lost consciousness was of his friends.

Little did he know that Sam and Tucker had been going through the same thing, though when the three choices appeared in the beginning, Sam chose the wand and Tucker the shield.

* * *

A bubble of darkness appeared in the lab in front of the portal. It split in half and opened to reveal Danny, Sam, and Tucker unconscious inside it. The darkness fell away from around them and melted into the floor disappearing as if it had never been there. Then they stirred.

Danny woke up first, sitting up in a daze, not really awake. That is, until he realized that he was sitting on the cold metal floor of his parents' lab. Then his eyes opened wide with full awareness and recollection.

"Sam! Tucker! Wake up!" Danny shook his best friends awake.

"What happened?" Tucker moaned, almost incoherently.

Sam, startled awake, was rapidly recalling everything that had happened.

Tucker woke up a bit more; enough to say, "Hey, Danny, why are we in your parents' lab? Weren't we in the--!" Tucker's sudden silence indicated he to remembered what had happened.

"That door, and the darkness... Just what did Vlad do?" Sam worried.

"I don't know, but it can't be good. He screamed something about power, before--"

Tucker interrupted Danny with a gasp. "Look at the portal!"

Sam and Danny both turned their attention to the portal, which had a ring of darkness on the outside edge of the green vortex. And it was expanding.

"That can't be good."

"How long were we unconscious?" Sam asked, overriding Tucker's obvious statement.

"I don't know. I was having a strange dream about some weird shadow creatures."

"Me, too! And there were three pedestals..."

"With different weapons on them?"

Danny, Tucker, then Sam had spoken, all overriding each other quickly in excitement.

"So, I took the sword."

"The shield."

"And I took the wand." There was a pause in silence. "This is weird."

"No kidding," Danny said as he glanced at the portal again. The dark ring, rather like the iris of an eye, had grown slightly since they first noticed. "I'm going to check it out."

Danny stood and walked over to the portal and stuck himself halfway through it, careful to avoid the darkness, so he could see inside the Ghost Zone. When he pulled himself back out, he reported, "The darkness is taking over the Ghost Zone."

"How can we stop it?"

Danny shook his head. "I don't know."

Jazz's scream echoed clearly from upstairs. The trio ran up from the basement and into the living room where Jazz was. A shadow creature was attacking her, and she couldn't seem to touch it. Danny zapped it with a small ecto-ray from his finger and it exploded into a little cloud, which dissipated.

"That wasn't a ghost, Danny! What's going on?" Jazz was clearly terrified.

"Plasmius opened a door in the Ghost Zone and it released a bunch of darkness that's taking over everything," Danny explained quickly. "Where are mom and dad?"

"They saw the ... shadow-things and went outside to fight them off. The ghost shield wasn't working on any of them, but..."

"That's because they aren't ghosts. But do you know what direction mom and dad went?" Danny had glanced outside through the window to see the ghost shield, which other small shadows were walking through as if it weren't even there, but no parents or GAV.

"Towards the school, I think. They were looking for you because you were gone and thought you might've been there."

"How long was I gone?"

"Several hours. It's late morning. You were gone all night."

"All night!?"

"Yeah, but you wouldn't know that if you looked outside. It's dark, almost like it's dusk, and the sun is mostly eclipsed by something."

"Oh no."

Sam and Tucker appeared equipped with assorted ghost weaponry. "Your ecto-ray worked against the shadow, so we thought we'd get some stuff to fight with," Sam grinned, pleased with herself.

Jazz took some equipment from them and said, "We have to find mom and dad! They have to be okay!"

Danny transformed to Phantom once he was through the ghost shield and zapped all the little shadows that were in the way. Then he took off to see a wider area.

"What do you see?" Jazz shouted up at him.


	3. World's Death

"What do you see?" Jazz shouted up at Danny. He almost didn't hear her because he could see quite a bit.

The sky was an angry violet with rapid strings of cloud funneling into the dark vortex that was blocking the sun. Streaks of lightning would shoot from the violently churning darkness that seemed to give off a purplish light and was surrounded by a reddish orange haze. The entire horizon was a deep red, almost like the sky was bleeding. Creeping in from all directions were spikes of void that shattered the land, which crumbled under the encroaching border of darkness. Beyond that dark edge was only space, the kind of space that, if one were to slip and fall from the edge, that person would fall forever until the darkness reached him. A howling wind rose from the void, pulled by the force of the vortex.

On the earth that still remained were an army of shadows, many of them small, but there were other, stronger ones stalking the streets as well. They attacked the few remaining defenseless people, ripping and tearing at them until they vanished into clouds of darkness, releasing a point of crystalline light that the shadows would leap on and then withdraw from, revealing yet another shadow.

In the near distance, by the school that still existed, was evidence of fighting. Beams of energy were being shot into the air and there were flashed of light. Debris would occasionally be cast up, or even a little shadow.

"Danny!" Jazz shouted from below, catching Danny's attention.

"Someone's fighting by the school!" Everyone ran towards the school, blasting little shadows out of the way as they went.

They reached the school grounds to see people fighting in the street out front. They were surrounded by the shadow creatures, but holding them back for the time being.

Danny, who was flying above and saw them first, shouted down, "They're still alive!"

Everyone picked up the pace a bit more and blasted shadows more rapidly as they fought to join the other group, which consisted of Danny's parents, Valerie, Mr. Lancer, Qwan, Tucker's parents, and Paulina. Everyone had one of the Fentons' weapons and were shooting the shadows.

"Sam, Tucker, Jazz! You're alive!" They were greeted enthusiastically though there was no real break in the fighting. When Phantom landed to join them, they also greeted him happily. "Phantom, you're here, too! Do you know what these things are?"

"They're shadows! A door was opened in the Ghost Zone that shouldn't have been and now the darkness is eating everything, here and there! Even the portal is closing!"

"Ghost boy!!!! You're here to save us!" Paulina leapt on Danny, who promptly shoved he back off and told her to keep shooting.

Maddie shifted around the circle until she stood by Phantom. "Phantom, have you seen my son? We came here looking for him, but he's not here, and we're worried the shadows already got to him."

Danny opened his mouth to respond but there was a sudden earthquake and a huge chunk of land fell away behind the school, taking the building with it and leaving a clear view of the absence of land beyond. Debris was being pulled up into the vortex at a faster rate, only feeding it as it grew larger.

"No!" Danny shouted in horror as he saw that Amity Park was disappearing. The others even froze momentarily, for they hadn't known that the world was disappearing as well as being besieged by shadows.

The creatures took advantage of the pause and suddenly swelled in a wave, overtaking the defenders' circle. There were three flashes of light as new weapons suddenly appeared in the hands of Sam and Tucker and Danny used an energy wave to blast all the shadows back.

"Where did those come from?" Qwan commented as Sam leapt forward in a melee attack with her long staff and Tucker shoved back more shadows with his tall shield. The two new weapons were stunningly effective, but that didn't really matter when all the shadows were converging on the group.

Danny glanced at Sam and Tucker, associating the new weapons with the ones from the dream and wondering briefly why he didn't have one as well. Then he knocked out three shadows with a single blast and the earth shook violently once more. A massive crack split the street behind the group and the chunk of land they were on started to rapidly fall apart. Shadows overwhelmed the unbalanced group, scoring hits on Qwan, Lancer, Paulina, and the Foleys. Valerie and Danny's parents, the only trained fighters, survived as the bodies of their fallen comrades disappeared. Danny got to see up close what the crystalline light was that had appeared last time. It was a heart. _Their_ hearts, Danny realized with a sudden shock. 'The shadows are stealing people's hearts!' Danny grabbed Sam, Tucker, and Jack while Valerie grabbed Maddie and everyone flew to the roof of the Ops center, Valerie with her sled.

From the roof they had a horrifyingly good view of the crumbling world. Danny zoomed down to the basement and saw that the portal to the Ghost Zone was almost completely black, with just a small ball of green about the size of his fist. He returned to the roof.

"The Ghost Zone is gone, too."

"Oh, Jack," Maddie cried, "we'll never see Danny again."

"But mom--!" Another terrible crack cut off Danny as he was about to console his mother and the building shook, causing the roof to tilt more than it already did.

"What did you say, Phantom?"

Shadows were climbing up the walls of the Fenton home and they reached the roof just then, tackling Maddie and Valerie who were both near the edge but looking at Phantom.

"MOM!!!" Danny screamed as she fell, her body disappearing and revealing another heart which the shadows eagerly tackled.

"Maddie!" Jack howled as he leapt at them, but his efforts were futile and the shadows took his heart as well.

Though Danny didn't fully notice, a strange weapon appeared in his hand, the same one that had appeared on the stained glass floor of the dream. He leapt at the shadows that had taken his parents and Valerie, causing several to burst and disappear.

The vortex suddenly seemed to get louder, sensing that the destruction of the world was almost complete, and the wind strengthened until in threatened to remove the remaining three from the roof. They all came together and gripped each other tightly as they looked up at the sky.

"The darkness won't separate us this time!"

Then they were lifted from the roof as Danny summoned a shield around them to fend of the darkness so they wouldn't be separated like last time. The vortex swallowed them and the trio blacked out. The last thing each one remembered was gripping each other tightly, hoping against hope that they would stay together and that they wouldn't be destroyed like everything else.

The light of Danny's ghost shield and the small pinhole in the portal winked out simultaneously.

* * *

Sora shook the rolled paper from the bottle and opened it eagerly, curious at what King Mickey could have sent him. The joy on everyone's faces soon faded, however, when the impact of the message hit them.

"The dark pathways between worlds are open again."

"But we locked them shut," Riku protested.

"Someone else powerful opened them again and the 'dual world' has already been consumed by darkness."

"No! That's horrible! Why would someone do that?" Kairi was alarmed. Though she'd been unconscious for most of that episode, Sora had told her of the problems the doors to darkness had caused and the risk to Kingdom Hearts.

"We need to see the king about this right away. The door must be shut before the darkness spreads again."

"I agree," Riku said. "Another wave of heartless on the worlds would be bad. There may even be more nobodies."

Sora, Riku, and Kairi all looked up to the sky as if they could see the star of the 'dual world' wink out.


	4. New Worlds

Eventually, Danny realized he was conscious. He could feel warmth on either side of him, though he didn't immediately know what it was. He could feel his body was sitting on something hard and against something hard. He could feel that he was in human form. Wherever he was didn't feel familiar. Eventually the thought reached his mind that he should probably open his eyes, so he did.

Danny was sitting in what seemed to be an alley against the wall of a building. It turned a corner near his left and opened out somewhere near his right. He could hear water but not see it. Sam sat on his left, and Tucker on his right. Both still seemed asleep.

Something seemed wrong, but for the half-life of him, Danny couldn't figure it out. He decided to wake up his friends. "Sam. Tucker." He nudged them both and their eyes opened slowly, looked around, then focused on him.

"Danny? Where are we?" Tucker asked.

"At least we're still together," Sam yawned, then stood up to stretch.

Danny and Tucker followed suit. "'Still together?' Why wouldn't we be together?"

"I don't know. Um..."

"Something about a door?"

"Shadows?"

"Oh no!" Danny remembered first. "Amity Park! It's gone! And everyone..."

"Do you think we can bring them back somehow?"

"I don't know. I really hope so, but..." The trio made their way to the entrance of the alley. "Where are we? The stars look different..." Danny, the hopeful astronaut and avid sky gazer, knew the skies of Amity Park well and this definitely wasn't the same. Sam and Tucker couldn't tell the difference, but the took Danny at his word.

"Hey, there's a shop!" Tucker pointed. "Let's go there and see if we can find out anything!"

Sam shrugged and said, "Worth a shot."

They passed a small boy bouncing a ball on his knee while walking around a fountain. He waved at them as they passed by, so they all waved back. Outside the shop window was a small floating winged being with a big ball on its head that looked soft. The entire thing looked like a stuffed toy, but Danny couldn't sense anything ghostly about it, so they just walked inside without comment.

"And how might I help you young'uns?"

There was an old guy behind the counter. That was who addressed Danny, Sam and Tucker.

"Hi," Danny stepped up. "Um, where are we?"

"Where are ya? Why, yer in Traverse Town o' course! Where'd ya think ya was?"

Danny shook his head. "I don't know. We just kinda appeared here."

"Appeared, ya say? Not in a Gummi Ship?"

"What's a Gummi Ship?" Tucker asked this at the hint of technology.

"'What's a Gummi'...? Now how could you not know what a Gummi Ship is? Just how did ya get here? Magic?"

Sam spoke up. "Our world was consumed by darkness. A bunch of shadow creatures were attacking--"

"And stealing hearts!" Danny interrupted.

"The shadow creatures were attacking and the world was falling apart--"

Sam was interrupted again, this time by the store keeper. "Whoa, hold up. Shadow creatures, ya say? Stealin' hearts?"

"It sounds crazy, but--"

"Ya aren't crazy! Those are the Heartless yer talkin' 'bout!"

"Heartless?"

"Yeah. They steal hearts cause they don't have any of their own. That's why we call 'em Heartless. If Heartless are yer problem, ya need to go to Radiant Gardens. There's a bunch o' people there that fight 'em."

"Radiant Gardens? Where's that?"

"It's another world. Just go to the Gummi Ship Garage and buy yerself tickets to go there. Ya got munny, don't ya?"

"..."

"Ya don't got munny." The trio shook their heads. "Well, if ya run some deliveries for me, I'll give ya some! How's that?"

Danny, Sam, and Tucker all looked at each other, shrugged, and nodded. "We'll do it."

"Great!" The man crouched down behind the counter and hefted a large box full of smaller boxes and bags all with tags on them onto the counter. "The people and locations are all on the tags. Once everythin's delivered, come back here and I'll pay ya."

Danny grabbed the heavy box and dragged it off the counter. Even with his boosted strength from his ghost half, it was heavy. "Thanks, um..."

"The name's Vin."

"Like in Vincent?"

"Nope. Just Vin."

"Thanks Vin! By the way I'm Danny. This is Sam and Tucker." Danny indicated the owner of each name with a gesture.

"Good luck Danny, Sam, and Tucker."

The three left the store. "Now we just have to find where all this stuff goes. I wonder what's even in here that makes this box so heavy..."

Tucker grabbed a bag and read the label. "Might as well start. Otherwise we won't get to Radiant Gardens."

* * *

The trio all sat down on the fountain in the town square with a sigh of exhaustion. They'd wandered all over town for hours delivering that stuff, and now there was only one little box left, but it didn't have a tag on it, so they were going to return it to the store and Vin. Danny set the box on Tucker's lap and leaned back, inadvertently falling in the fountain, which felt good. He then phased back out, completely dry. "Ta da!" He said just for the fun of it, then sat back down.

"So who do you think the last box might be for? We've been everywhere, today. And it's still night. Have you noticed that?"

"Yeah. Maybe it's just part of this world. It's always nighttime here. As for the box...I don't know why Vin would forget to label one. All the other ones were carefully labeled."

"Well, let's go find out!"

The trio stood once more, Tucker carrying the box, and walked into Vin's store.

"You kids done deliverin'? What took ya so long?"

"We've never been here before, remember? Besides, there's one box left. It doesn't have a tag."

"One box, huh?" Vin took the big empty box and retrieved the smaller box from inside it. "Oh! This is mine! Wonder how it got in there... Thank you kids fer bringin' it back t' me. Here's yer payment. I checked, and that's enough t' get the three of ya on a ship t' Radiant Garden. There's a little extra in there too, just in case."

"Thank you Mr. Vin!"

"Nah, no 'Mr.' just Vin. By the way, when ya get there, ask for Cid. He used t' own this shop before me, but he's one of the fighters now. Also ya could ask for Leon or Yuffie. They used to live here too, defendin' the town an' fight'n' Heartless."

"Cid, Leon, Yuffie. Got it! Thank you Vin!"

Danny, Sam, and Tucker all left. "At least we have a start," Danny commented.

"And since we delivered stuff all over town, we know where the Gummi Ship Garage is, too," Sam added.

"I wonder what Radiant Gardens will look like..."

"Hopefully not pink."

Tucker was just excited to finally see a Gummi Ship.

* * *

Sora, Riku, Kairi, Donald, and Goofy were meeting with King Mickey at Disney Castle.

"So someone opened a dark doorway?"

"And the darkness has already consumed the dual world that the door was in."

"What is a dual world?"

"It is a rarity among worlds where two are tied so tightly together as to become two pieces of a whole. In this case, the door was opened in one side of the world and the darkness overtook both parts."

Sora sighed. "I locked all the doors on the worlds I found, though. And the three of us," Sora indicated himself, the King, and Riku, sealed the whole thing.

"Yes, we did, but not permanently, it seems. The door was likely unlocked in a similar manner by which it had been locked."

"So there's another Keyblade bearer?"

"Likely so, though a focused energy from a pure heart might have the same effect. That is what the Keyblade uses and refines, after all. Pure energy and heart."

"But why would someone of pure heart want to open a doorway to darkness?"

"That, I have no answer for. The heart may have been misguided or deceived. However it occurred, the door must be sealed again, as well as any others that may have been opened from the dark paths."

"Because the door is open again, that means more Heartless and Nobodies, doesn't it?"

"I believe so."

"We need to warn the others!" Kairi spoke up for the first time in the conversation, which had been between King Mickey and Sora so far.

"I will search for other doors that have been opened and investigate how far the darkness has spread," the King determined. "You go to Radiant Garden to warn Leon and the others of the threat. If you can, also try to find out if anyone survived that world's destruction."

"Like I did?"

"Yes."

"Alright. I showed up in Traverse town then, so maybe any survivors went there."

"That is a good idea, Sora. Warn Radiant Gardens first, then check Traverse Town."

* * *

Sam and Tucker stared at Tucker. He closely resembled an Energizer Bunny as he bounced around and continually bugged the pilot about what stuff on the ship did.

The pilot had been tolerant at first, but was now becoming visibly irritated at Tucker's constant badgering. And they hadn't even left the Gummi Ship Garage in Traverse Town yet..

"This is going to be a long trip, isn't it?" Danny asked Sam, who he was sitting next to. He also had the window seat because he really wanted to see when they went out into space.

"Yep," Sam affirmed as they both continued to stare at Tucker.


	5. To and Fro

I finally found time to write this chapter out...

* * *

Sora landed on Radiant Garden at the edge of town near the bailey and he took off for the headquarters of the Restoration Committee and city defense.

"Sora?" Yuffie was the first to see the young Keyblade bearer upon his entrance of the headquarters. "What are you doing here?" Leon and Cid, also present, looked over at the sudden arrivals as well.

"I hope nothing is amiss again," Leon said, thinking over the relatively low heartless activity ever since Sora had gone after the Nobodies with the King.

"Something is amiss, Leon! Remember before, when this was still Hollow Bastion and all we had to worry about was Heartless? The worlds had been connected with the dark pathways that the Heartless use to get around, but Riku, the King, and I shut them to protect Kingdom Hearts that first time. Remember?"

"Yes, we remember."

"Well, the stars are winking out again. The King is investigating, but someone opened the Door somehow."

"What!? No! That's terrible!"

"I'm going to Traverse Town to check for any survivors, since that's where I ended up when my world disappeared, but I came here first to warn you. With the Doors opening again, there's bound to be more Heartless attacking Radiant Garden again. It was a popular place for them."

"Well, there hasn't been any change of activity yet, but thank you Sora. Consider us warned. Good luck in Traverse Town."

Sora smiled brightly at his friend's wish of good luck. With a, "Thanks guys!" he departed, eager to reach Traverse Town. He really hoped someone had survived--someone usually does--because they might be able to give some information if nothing else. Sora refused, for the time being, that anyone from the dual world who survived its destruction had gone the way of Riku, into the darkness.

* * *

Danny had been gazing out the window extremely bored with his head propped up on his fist. He was very nearly asleep, which is why it took a moment for the sight of Radiant Garden to register in his mind. After a blink or two, and the young halfa straightening in his seat, he finally realized that the Gummi Ship was arriving at its destination.

"Sam." He nudged the girl in the seat next to him. She had fallen asleep a while ago. "Sam, we're here." At Danny's insistence, Sam roused herself awake and then looked out the window where Danny was pointing.

"So this is Radiant Garden?" she finally said.

Danny realized that Tucker wasn't immediately in sight. He leaned forward and stood up partway to look over the seats in front of him to see into the cockpit, where he found Tucker. The geek was sitting on the floor next to the pilot's chair, gazing up at the controls with his eyes glazed over. It was hard to tell, but apparently Danny's friend had gone into some kind of stasis sitting there for the whole trip without moving.

Danny settled back down into his seat, deciding to leave Tucker where he was for the moment. As he was now, the pilot was just ignoring the boy, and Danny didn't want to risk the pilot's temper for the last few minutes before landing by trying to move his friend and chancing waking him up.

After informing Sam of Tucker's condition--which she decided to view herself--she agreed with Danny's judgement and they both stared out the window as Radiant Garden drew nearer.

A few minutes later, with a soft jostling, the Gummi Ship landed on a cleared area just on the fringe of town. Danny and Sam both stood, Sam immediately leaving through the hatch that the pilot activated and Danny going to his friend and picking him up. With a polite, "Thank you," aimed at the pilot, Danny hefted Tucker down the hatch.

Tucker revived when he realized he was leaving the Gummi Ship and whined, but Danny refused to put him down until they were both outside the ship with Sam. Besides, when Danny did finally set Tucker down, Tucker discovered that he couldn't immediately move under his own power. His legs had cramped into place, so Danny and Sam had to help him stretch them out after they stretched themselves.

"_I want one!_" Tucker whined pleadingly as he gazed after the Gummi Ship.

"Tucker, we barely had enough munny to buy passage," Sam explained. She felt slightly awkward at the realization that she, for once in her life, didn't have access to her family's large reserves of money. "We have no idea how much a ship like that would even cost, but it's far out of our range."

"Let's go into town, since we're here. We need to find Cid and Yuffie and . . . who was the last person?" Danny couldn't remember.

"Leon," Sam supplied.

"Cid, Yuffie, and Leon. So let's go."

Upon walking into town, the first thing they encountered was shops. The smell of something tasty drifted across the air and Danny and Tucker's stomachs audibly complained their emptiness simultaneously. Sam's hand went to hers, though she had made no noise, so she was obviously as hungry as they.

"We have enough money for food, right?" Danny asked Sam, who was holding the money.

"Let's see how expensive it is," she suggested.

The food prices were definitely manageable, so the three bought enough to satiate themselves for the time and then went to explore the rest of Radiant Garden.

Near the edge of the market, Danny, Sam and Tucker came across three small, faerie-like people. They seemed to just be hovering in the air, watching over everyone in view. Sam got their attention by saying, somewhat loudly, up at them, "Excuse me!"

The trio, caught by surprise somehow, conferred in rapid whispers in the air and then floated down obligingly. "We're the Gullwings! What con we do for you?"

"Do you live here?"

"No, silly, this is the market! We live over that way!" They pointed in some vague direction.

"Do you happen to know someone named Cid, Yuffie, or Leon?"

"Cid?" "Yuffie?" "Leon?" Each of the trio said a different name, one after the other. "Of course we know them!" the one in the center and most forward of the formation, who seemed to be the leader, took control of the conversation. "They're part of the Restoration Committee! And they defend Radiant Garden against the Heartless!"

"Can you tell us where they are?"

"Sure! That way!" They all pointed in vaguely the same direction as before.

"Could you be more specific?" Sam's tone conveyed growing exasperation.

"There'll be this tower-like thing, but it's not really a tower, but yeah. You go there and then down through the hallways, and then you'll find them!" They suddenly flew off, leaving with no apparent reason, but they were chattering loudly about something.

"Not very helpful, was it?" Danny looked to Sam.

"No. Do they really live here?"

Danny did not respond to that. "Perhaps we should just explore a bit more."

The trio wandered deeper into the town, generally following the direction that the Gullwings had pointed. They went through what seemed like a residential area but found no hints as to their goal. Eventually they reached the bailey on the other side of town and saw the old tower far out in the crater there.

"That thing is falling part. I don't think Cid will be there."

"It's way out there, too. Wouldn't defenders of the city want to actually be _in_ the city they defend?"

"In theory."

With that, they continued on, eventually reaching an area that seemed half demolished and still under construction.

"This seems to be the end of town," Danny observed. He jumped lightly down the rubble to look at where the lower pathway led. He couldn't see to the end, but he figured it led to the crater area since that was the general direction it went in.

Danny turned around and was about to head back up to his friends when Sam gasped and Tucker pointed to something behind him. "Danny, look out!"

Danny spun around again and saw that several Heartless had appeared silently behind him. Danny's strange new weapon manifested in his hand, the green blade at the end seeming to shimmer like flames. Oddly enough, no matter what form the flames were in, they were always flat and there were always three high peaks. Danny really didn't bother noticing this, however, since he had already engaged the Heartless, shooting them with small ecto-rays and using the new weapon equally. These appeared to be stronger than the small bug-like Heartless that had swarmed his home; they were larger at least, and varied in appearance. Sam and Tucker were soon down the staircase of rubble and fighting at his side.

* * *

"There's a disturbance in the construction zone," Cid informed Leon and Yuffie.

"It may be increased Heartless activity, like Sora warned us about."

"Already?"

"We'd better check it out. Let's go, Yuffie."

"Okay!"

The pair were soon out of their base and on a high ledge overlooking the construction zone; a great place for ambushing anyone below.

"Look at that, Leon! Someone's already taken care of our problem for us!"

They watched the trio of capable fighters defeat the last of the Heartless below. Leon assessed their skill as experienced but below that of people like himself and Sora. The dark skinned boy and the girl both seemed new to their weapons, though not new to fighting, while the second boy, he seemed to be the best fighter and managing fairly well with a combination of strange magic and his own weapon...

"Yuffie. That boy's weapon, it looks rather like a Keyblade, doesn't it?"

Yuffie peered down at the group, focusing on what the lighter-skinned boy held. "It does, though not like anything I've ever seen Sora with."

"Maybe he's like Sora's friends Riku and Kairi; they both have special Keyblades, of a kind, don't they?"

"I'm not sure. That's what it seemed like."

"Hm."

"I don't think I've ever seen them here before. Think they're new?"

Leon and Yuffie looked on overhead as the three young fighters looked around them in unease and headed back into the main town area.

* * *

Danny took a deep breath and lowered his weapon. "Finally, they're gone."

"Where do you think they came from?" Sam relaxer her grip on her staff and Tucker let the bottom edge of his shield rest on the ground.

"I don't know, but this is definitely the edge of town. Let's go back; there's not much point staying here and waiting for more Heartless to show up."

"I agree. Maybe we should go back to the market and ask around."

"I feel like we're being watched," Danny said, looking around him and causing his friends to do the same. "Let's leave before more Heartless come."

The three friends, and newcomers to Radiant Garden, climbed back up the stairway of rubble and headed back towards people.

* * *

With a final slash of his Keyblade, Sora brought the big Heartless down and sealed the Door it had been guarding. He then walked back with Donald and Goofy to the central fountain and towards Cid's old shop. It was one of the first places anyone was likely to go; anyone new, anyway.

"Hiya!" he shopkeeper greeted upon Sora's entrance.

"Hi. Uh, has anyone new come through here? Because of the Heartless, that is."

"Hm," the shopkeeper thought for a moment. "Oh! You must mean those other kids! About your age, they were, and lookin' lost. They were talkin' 'bout how their world was eaten by them Heartless as been runnin' round lately an' how they jus' showed up here."

"So there was someone here! Who were they? Where'd they go?"

"Danny, Sam, and Tucker were there names; two boys and a girl. They seemed to be good friends." Sora, who'd been all over town clearing out Heartless, didn't remember seeing a trio of people anywhere. "As for where they went, after they finished my job, I gave them munny to get tickets on a Gummi Ship to Radiant Garden so they could talk to those fighters about their Heartless problem. Cid, who used to run this shop, and Leon and Yuffie."

"That's where we just were!" Donald exclaimed to Goofy behind Sora.

"Really? They went to Radiant Garden?"

"If they got on the right Gummi Ship, yeah."

"Thanks, mister!"

Sora, Donald, and Goofy ran back out of the shop, the shopkeeper's shout of, "The name's Vin! Don't call me 'mister'!" following them through the door.

"Thanks Vin!" Sora shouted back as the door swung shut. They were soon on their Gummi Ship and in hyperdrive for Radiant Garden.

* * *

Don't worry, there are more chapters outlined already. I shouldn't be too horribly long in updating. It depends on how much time I have to write in full and not just continue building outlines.

Reviews are always encouraging!


	6. Meeting

Sora, Donald, and Goofy were soon back in Radiant Garden. They landed near the town entrance this time so they could pass through the market and buy some supplies.

While restocking, Sora noticed three people sitting on the top of a low wall, eating some blue-colored ice cream. They were obviously enjoying it, and talking among themselves as if they were friends, which they probably were. Sora thought that the ice cream was Sea-Salt Ice Cream, since it looked the same, and recalled how much he liked it himself. His other half, Roxas, enjoyed it too, but Sora could not recall how he had learned that.

Finished with supplies, the trio moved on from the market, going to Headquarters to see if the survivors had found Leon and the others yet.

* * *

"So there are survivors?" Leon asked Sora, who'd finished telling them about events in Traverse Town.

"Yeah," Sora nodded. "Three, named Danny, Sam, and Tucker. Two boys and one girl, Vin said."

"Hm," was all Leon gave in response.

Yuffie spoke up energetically. Then again, she did everything energetically. "Do you think the three survivors are the same three people we saw earlier, Leon?"

"What?"

"More Heartless appeared like you said they would, Sora. There was an attack in the construction zone, and we got the alarm, but there were three people already there fighting off the Heartless. And they won, too. We didn't have to interfere at all."

"Really!? Where are they now?"

"I don't know. They went back into town."

Leon spoke again. "There were two boys and a girl. One of the boys had dark skin. The three seem about your age. They also all had weapons, and seemed to have some experience fighting. The other boy, he was most skilled of them and seemed to be the leader."

Sora recalled the trio he'd seen eating ice cream in the market.

"Hey, Sora," Goofy said, attracting the attention of the others, "weren't three people like that in the market? One of them had dark skin."

Sora realized that Goofy was right. "Hey, yeah, they were there," he said aloud.

"Perhaps you should go find 'em again before they leave," Cid said from his seat at the computer bank.

"They won't leave," Aeris admonished him. "They're looking for us, remember?"

"Go find them, Sora," Leon ordered, "and bring them back here."

* * *

Danny, Sam, and Tucker, upon finishing their ice cream, decided to explore the town more to look for the tower-that-is-not-a-tower in hopes of locating the people Vin had told them about.

"We're back here again?" Tucker sighed as they came back around to the construction zone where they'd been attacked.

They'd tried to go through the town a different way, but they'd only finished going in a circle from the route they'd taken before. And they still didn't know where Leon or the others were.

"They are supposed to be here, right?" Sam asked, glancing around the area and at her two friends.

"Vin said Radiant Garden, and this is Radiant Garden," Danny commented.

Danny felt a strange twisting feeling suddenly in his chest, and his hand shot to the place.

"Danny, what is it?" Sam asked, concerned at Danny's expression of discomfort.

"It's like my ghost sense," he tried to explain. The feeling was in the same place that his ghost sense came from, but it wasn't the same at all. It was like his core was being twisted, in stead of chilled like usual. "But it's wrong."

Heartless suddenly appeared surrounding the group and alarms went off, triggered by the enemy presence. Mixed among the Heartless were a few very different creatures, pale in color with a definite aura of other-ness from the Heartless. They didn't seem to be as solid as they Heartless, as if they weren't all there, but the Heartless didn't feel complete either, in a different way.

None of that mattered because both types of creatures were attacking. Danny set the twisting feeling in the back of his mind and focused on fighting as weapons sprang to the hands of all three of them and they fought back.

* * *

Sora was halfway to the market when the city's alarms went off, signaling a Heartless attack.

Donald and Goofy came to a halt behind Sora and they all looked at each other, then looked around.

"So where are they?" Goofy asked, making note of the absence.

"Probably the edge of town."

"Let's go!" Donald cried impatiently. "We can find them later."

The three all reversed direction and ran back towards the construction zone on the edge of town. It soon came in sight. They ran to the edge of the rubble and looked down into the lower area to see Heartless, Nobodies, and three young fighters around his age holding their own against them. One of the boys was obviously a better fighter than his companions, and the Nobodies were focused on attacking him only for some unknown reason.

"Let's help!" Sora said as he leapt down to fight, followed by Donald and Goofy.

* * *

Danny noticed a sudden change in the fight, and then figured out that it had been caused by three newcomers. Immediately noticing that they were helping and not attacking him, Danny dismissed it from his main attention, which were the not-Heartless other enemies. They were only attacking him for some reason, and they were stronger than the Heartless. Normally that wouldn't have been a big problem, but with them all attacking simultaneously and with the Heartless attacking as well, he had his hands full. And now there were strangers here, so Danny couldn't transform and get better access to his ghost powers, which he'd been on the edge of doing.

Somewhere that was not the forefront of his mind, Danny noticed that the human fighter--his two companions were a dog and a duck--had a weapon vaguely similar to his own, though markedly different in appearance.

Two of the other enemies split off to attack him, but the other four remained focused on Danny. Given the sudden opening of reduced numbers, Danny lunged at one of them and hit it solidly in the head, defeating it. It broke up into jagged wisps and disappeared.

Now with a better advantage, Danny attacked the other three in turn, fending off Heartless in the process, and defeated them one by one.

Sora glanced around, given a free moment to do so after defeating the second Nobody that had attacked him, and saw that Goofy, Donald, the dark skinned boy and the girl were finishing off the Heartless. The other boy was fighting one last Nobody, having defeated the other three that hadn't left to attack Sora.

The last Nobody fell to simultaneous attacks from Sora and Danny, and Danny's eyes widened in surprise to see Sora on the other side at the disappearing Nobody. The other four defeated the last few Heartless a moment later.

"Hey, are you...Danny, Sam, and Tucker?" Sora said, breaking the post-battle silence.

"Yeah. I'm Danny."

"Sam."

"Tucker."

"Who are you?" Danny asked.

"I'm Sora, and this is Donald and Goofy. We've been looking for you."

"Looking for us?" Sam spoke. "Why?"

"You were in Traverse Town right? You were sent there after the Heartless got your world?"

"Yeah," Tucker said as Danny nodded. "How do you know that?"

"Let's get back to Leon and the others. We can explain fully when we're there."

"Leon? So you know him? And what about Cid and Yuffie?"

"They should be there, too. They're the Restoration Committee after all. There are others, like Merlin and Aeris, but let's get back."

No longer necessary, the weapons disappeared from their respective owners back to whence they had come because the fighting and danger were gone for the time.

Sora, Donald, and Goofy led Danny, Sam, and Tucker back to Headquarters.

Upon Sora's return, introductions began.

"Hey, Sora, you're back! Oh, is that them?"

"Yeah, Yuffie. This is Danny, Sam, and Tucker." Sora pointed to the owner of each name as he said it. "This is Yuffie," he said, talking now to the newcomer trio. "And that's Leon and Yuffie over there, and Cid is sitting there. Merlin isn't here right now, so he's probably at his own house."

Tucker immediately focused on Cid when Sora introduced him and the rough-looking man waved in acknowledgment. Well, not so much on Cid himself and more on where he was sitting. There were _computers there._

Tucker suddenly shot to Cid's side, nearly overbearing in his excitement at seeing familiar technology. Cid, leaning out of his chair, nearly fell out of it in surprise, and made a rude exclamation out of reflex. Tucker didn't notice.

"That's Tron," Sora said belatedly.

Sam sighed and Danny face-palmed.

* * *

Yeah, so I've been attacked by writer's block again. I've outlined this story all the way up through chapter 12, but now I'm stuck midway through 13. The unlucky number. Hopefully it will go away by the time I get to that point writing out the story fully.

Please review! I'll post faster. Bonus, there's a lull in my homework load this weekend, and I forgot (and therefore missed the opportunity) to plan on going home this weekend. So I might even write chapter 7 out as a kind of 2-for-1.


	7. Castle Under Siege

The sudden update is because Waterdog reviewed. Readers should thank her.

Waterdog, you get biscuits and the appreciation of fellow readers. And a prize, so PM me if you read this.

* * *

"To the matters at hand," Leon said, obviously trying to not notice Tucker.

"The Heartless," Sora stepped up.

"Yeah, what are they? They came from that strange darkness." Brief flashes of memory came to Danny of the wave in the Ghost Zone and the masses of creatures on the disintegrating Amity Park.

"They're creatures of darkness. We call them Heartless because they don't have hearts. Because they don't, they attack people to steal their hearts. They attack worlds too, and once they consume the heart of a world, it disappears into the darkness."

"And the other ones? They felt different." Danny realized that the twisting feeling was gone, but he could remember it clearly.

"The other ones are called Nobodies. When the Heartless attack people and consume the hearts, the bodies usually disappear too with nothing to fill them anymore. But sometimes the stolen hearts are so strong that memories are left imprinted on the empty shell to hold it together and the person becomes a Nobody."

"Your world," Leon focused on Danny; "how did the darkness get there?"

"There was this Door, in the Ghost Zone--"

"Ghosts!" Goofy interrupted, and he shivered.

Donald shouted loudly at him not to interrupt.

"What is the Ghost Zone?" Sora urged Danny back to what he had been saying.

Danny continued after a glance at Goofy and Donald. "The Ghost Zone is like a separate part of our world, parallel to it. There are holes that connect the two."

"A dual world..." Leon said, understanding why it had been referred to as such.

"I was chasing an enemy, because he stole something that I needed to bring back, and he led us to the Door. It didn't seem normal, out in the middle of nowhere, but none of the doors in the Ghost Zone are really _normal._ So we were fighting over the map when--"

With a bang, the doors opened roughly and Danny was interrupted again. Turning to see who it was, he was surprised to see a mouse. Until he glanced at Goofy and Donald again.

"King Mickey!" "King!" "Hi, your Majesty!" came from assorted members of the room.

Aeris, who had left the room to prepare refreshments for Danny and his friends as well as Sora, Donald, and Goofy, returned to the room through another door in response to the greetings with Kairi in tow.

"Where's Riku? Wasn't he with you?"

"Riku is still investigating. I came to tell you that Beast's castle has been invaded by Heartless. They can't hold out for long, Sora."

"We'll go right away!" The issue of the dual world and its door was temporarily gone from Sora's mind.

The King turned to the newcomers, recognizing them for what they were almost immediately. "You can fight, right?" The two nodded. Tucker, his attention diverted by the slamming door, had finally caught up with what was going on and nodded a second later. "Good. Will you please go with them and help?"

"We can do that," Danny said, surety in his voice.

"Be careful; there's a new Heartless commander."

Danny had a suspicion that he knew who it was, but did not give it voice.

The King left again, back to wherever he'd arrived from and presumably back to Riku. Danny, Sam, and Tucker crammed into Sora's Gummi ship which, while adequate for three people, could barely fit six. Tucker didn't have room to stare at the pilot's console, though he did note that this Gummi ship was apparently equipped with hyperdrive. It was significantly faster, anyway, and the trip took less than an hour.

Upon landing on the new world, apparently only referred to as Beast's Castle--Sora, Goofy, and Donald had all taken part in briefing Danny's group on the place and it's inhabitants Beast (i.e. The Prince), Belle, Lumiere, Mrs. Potts, Cogsworth, Chip, and Wardrobe--the six of them saw a dark forest surrounding a castle under siege.

"No wonder the King was anxious," Sam commented as the Gummi ship landed.

They all leapt into the fray and were soon clearing a path through the Heartless that swarmed around them. Danny, Sam, and Tucker all kept some attention on the more experienced fighters to watch the techniques they used and try mimicking them. Danny less so, because he had much more experience fighting directly, but even he was distracted when he saw Sora transform at the side of his field of vision. Danny quickly focused on him and saw that his appearance had definitely changed, and apparently he had more powers to access. His clothes were red now, anyway, where they'd been mostly black before, and a second weapon was spinning beyond his hand.

Danny caught Sam's attention with a meaningful glance that flicked over to Sora before another strong flash lit the area briefly and Danny transformed. He hadn't noticed the twisting feeling in his chest before, because it had been faint, but now it was much stronger and definitely noticeable. A quick 360 determined that nothing on the battlefield had significantly changed, so Danny put the feeling towards the back of his mind again and resumed fighting with his own transformation-augmented abilities. His weapon, which he still didn't know what to call, also seemed to be more powerful, and the blade trailed ribbons of energy that harmed the Heartless.

Phantom flowed through the Heartless to Sam and Tucker, who were fighting back to back. "Guard me for a sec; I'll use the Ghostly Wail." His two friends shifted to be on either side of Phantom and he charged up energy within himself--a technique he discovered that did not cause the Ghostly Wail to immediately exhaust him. His ghostly aura quickly grew brighter in several moments, and then he jumped clear of the Heartless and then to a spot that put the five fighters at his back and a large portion of the Heartless horde before him.

The Ghostly Wail echoed far across the forest as the destructive energy dispelled the Heartless from nearly half the field, running to the fringes of the area suddenly exposed by his attack, Phantom proceeded to attack normally again. Using a few of his own specialty attacks, Sora also cleared large numbers of Heartless in one go. The outside of the castle was quickly cleared, and any remaining Heartless fled away to darkness or inside. There were doubtlessly more there, and this was confirmed when they ran thorough the grand entrance.

Nobodies were among the Heartless swarm inside, which Danny especially noticed upon entering the room fighting. The Heartless attacked immediately, only ceasing when defeated. The Nobodies froze in their unnatural motions and all turned, wherever they were in the room, to face Danny. Danny, Sora, and Sam took note of this, but none were able to react to the Nobodies' next action.

They shot to Danny, covering him in a writhing mass and blocking him from view of the others. A big bubble of darkness appeared, rising around the group; a large portal, made from the Nobodies collectively. The energy sparked there, spinning slowly, but before anyone realized what was happening, it shrank away and vanished.

All the Nobodies were gone.

So was Phantom.

"Danny!" Sam screamed, calling everyone's attention, but they were in the middle of a fight and could do nothing. Sam was forced to focus back on the battle as a Heartless took a swipe at her.

Sora activated another transformation and fought harder, thinking that if the Heartless were taken care of inside the castle as well, they would be able to go after Danny. Briefly her wondered why the Nobodies had focused on him immediately and why they had ignored everyone else, even himself, who the Nobodies were usually focused on.

* * *

Remember what I said above?

So please review!


	8. Darkness

**IMPORTANT NOTE**

If waterdog does not respond by December 15th, her prize will go to someone else, who will be determined by the reviews I receive.

* * *

Danny couldn't help but gasp for breath as the oppressive darkness released him. With a power surge, a ring blast surged out from him, knocking back all of the Nobodies who'd covered him with the darkness in the first place.

"Hey, that's different," he managed to comment to himself at the new use of his power in the moment before he was swarmed again. In that moment, he also managed to get a glance at his present location. Dark buildings surrounded him, and the few colors there were seemed strange and out of place. The sky was very dark, and there was on oddly-shaped moon in the sky. Before Danny could twist his head around to get a better look at it, the Nobodies piled onto him and his view was obscured.

They seemed to pop, or something--Danny wasn't sure exactly what happened, but there was a dry popping noise--and the Nobodies' bodies vanished like they were just shells and a thick darkness was left behind. All of them did that, leaving that darkness to resume oppressing Danny in a different manner from when he was being transported.

He might have been able to fight it off, if there had been only a few of them; they ones that had transported him, for example. Too bad for the halfa that many more of them also rushed to contribute to levels of darkness, steadily overwhelming him despite all the power he put into a hastily erected shield to protect himself.

The powers of a lone Phantom cannot compare to the darkness of an entire world. So, as the darkness pressing on Danny increased as Nobodies continued to swarm, his shield was pushed back, taxed to its limit, and penetrated. Danny felt almost as if he were being dragged into deeper and deeper water as the darkness pushed against his very form. Eventually he hit another limit and the barrier his physical form presented to the darkness was also broken through.

His heart had been strained. Ever since he'd first sensed a Nobody, whenever one was nearby, his heart had felt a strain, near the place where his ghost sense emerged from in the core of his chest. Being transported by the darkness had multiplied the feeling until he emerged with the Nobodies in this different place that apparently had extreme amounts of darkness in it. That he could have eventually dealt with, if he could have escaped. Now, however, the darkness was pressing against his very core, and his heart was twisting out of shape.

Danny Phantom tried to resist. He tried with all the energy he could summon, but a third and final limit was reached. His heart twisted out of shape by the pressure of the darkness, snapped loose. Everything seemed to stop as Danny's heart, loosened, settled fully into his human form, which was currently in the other place it always went to when he was Phantom. It was still tied to his human form; only the connection with Phantom had been broken.

Phantom, now without a heart, bore no resistance to the darkness, which swiftly melted into him and filled the empty space that now seemed so very large without a heart to fill it.

Residue remained on his outer shell, and as the darkness ceased activity, it solidified into the form of thin underclothes--which consisted of plain black pants, a shirt of unknown design, high black boots, and shockingly white gloves--and a heavy full-length cloak with slightly flared sleeves and a hood, which was down to show unchanged snowy hair and glowing green eyes.

Danny seemed to black out for a moment before his consciousness reconnected with his body. He could remember everything that just happened, but there were no longer emotions connected with his present state. Being disconnected with a heart will do that, but Danny didn't immediately think though the logic of the observation.

One memory shone strongly; a castle filled with heartless and five friends fighting with him to rescue the inhabitants. Not fully in control of himself, darkness pulled itself up around him and he vanished, traveling back to the place of the memory to resume where he'd left off before being captured by the Nobodies.

He didn't look around before he left, he didn't notice that all the Nobodies had vanished, he didn't see the shape of the moon. He didn't hear the silence, left behind in the wake of the echo left by his ring blast. He didn't recognize the point of returning as aiding his friends, which was a bond and loyalty felt with a heart.

* * *

The five fighters in Beast's castle had been managing against the Heartless, but with the strongest fighter of the second group missing, it was hard. Sora tried not to allow himself to get distracted, but he couldn't help thinking that Danny might have gone to the Nobodies' world, since they _had_ kidnapped him.

"Are you holding up okay!?" Sora partially shouted over to Sam and Tucker, who were fighting back to back to protect themselves a short distance from Sora's group.

"For now!" Sam replied with a grunt as she smashed a Heartless upside the head, knocking it out and causing it to disappear.

"Watch out!" Tucker shouted. He was the one facing Sora's group, so he saw the bubble of darkness that appeared in the same place as the one that had taken Danny. Due to the shift in battle, Sora was now the nearest instead of Sam and Tucker, and thus the most in danger from whatever might emerge from the portal.

A figure emerged from the darkness, which quickly vanished. He saw a shock of white hair and knew Danny was back.

Tucker and Sam's shouts of joy said as much when they also saw the telltale white hair, and glowing green eyes that looked towards the sources of the shouts as they came.

Phantom was immediately attacked by Heartless upon arriving, so he defended himself with skill, wielding both a ghostly keyblade and ghost powers.

With Phantom returned to the fight, the Heartless numbers began to reduce more noticeably. Danny also worked his way back to his friends, who spared only quick comments on his outfit change and disappearance.

"Danny, you're back! What happened?" came from Sam as she spun in attack.

"Yeah, dude, and what happened to your ghost suit?" was Tucker's contribution.

Danny didn't comment, only giving only a glance to his comrades before slashing another Heartless into nothing.

Soon the Heartless are eliminated and the six regroup in the center of the room.

"Danny!" Sora suddenly takes in the hybrid's appearance.

Aforementioned hybrid only gives the Keyblade bearer a blank look and silence.

"Danny? What's wrong?" Sam asks, immediately concerned by the alarm in Sora's voice.

"He's a Nobody! An Organization XIII member!"

Goofy gasps and Donald points an accusing finger at the Nobody Phantom.

"A what?" asks Tucker after a moment of silence where Danny does not protest the claim.

"A Nobody! Remember that I told you about them before?"

"No," said Tucker.

"Yeah," contradicted Sam, "you said they were like shells or something? WIthout hearts, right?"

"Yes!"

"So, Danny has no heart?" Sam's voice nearly quavered as she looked at the young hero from head to foot. She noticed that his face showed no emotional reaction to the sight of her even though it always had. There was no emotional reaction to being told he was heartless, either. "But he still looks like Danny..."

"Just with different clothes," Tucker supplemented.

"Only special Nobodies wear those clothes and only special Nobodies look the way they did before losing their hearts," Sora explained. "They are the most powerful Nobodies. There used to be several of them that formed a group called Organization XIII; their hearts had been so strong that their memories retained enough of that strength so that the shells left behind when the hearts were lost could actually remember and keep an original form. They also remembered what it was like to have a heart and put all efforts into recovering them."

"So Danny is still Danny?" Tucker wanted to confirm.

"He remembers everything, but doesn't have a heart any more."

"Really?"

Phantom looked at Sam, who was the last to speak. "Sora is correct." His tone only conveyed an intellectual interest. "I do seem to remember everything."

"Can you still transform?"

"Hm. I remember..." Phantom closed his eyes. A moment of expectant silence passed as everyone stared at him, making the silence seem much longer than it was.

Two blinding white rings appeared around Nobody Phantom's waist; Sam viewed them as a symbol of hope. They parted, rising up above his head and down around his feet, transforming his body back to Danny's original human form.

The light vanished and Danny staggered and gave a choking cry as he eyes flashed open blue and normal. Reuniting with his heart after being separated from it so completely will shock a person pretty good.

"Danny! Are you okay?" Sam gripped her best friend's arm.

Danny gave Sam a heartfelt, albeit painful smile, and Sam knew Danny had his heart again.

"That's . . . odd," was all Sora had to say.

A roar echoed through the castle.

"Beast!" Sora recognized it. "We have to check that he's okay!"

With a burst of energy, the six of them dashed up the stairs, Danny in the rear of the group, towards the source of the roar.


	9. Theories of the Heart

Look! I have returned! After my inexcusably long absence...

キングドムハーツ・化け物ダニー・はじめましょう

* * *

The six jumped up the central staircase, skipping several steps with each lunge, and reached the top, where Sora shoved the door open and it hit the inner wall with a bang, rebounding back a few inches.

"Beast!" he screamed upon seeing the owner of the castle wounded and bleeding near the feet of an unfamiliar floating figure.

The trio from Amity Park recognized Beast's attacker almost instantly. Almost; his appearance had been altered by the darkness of Heartless.

Vlad's black hair, which had before stuck up in a typically ghostly gravity-defying manner and formed two peaks, now lay flat against his skull and hung down with a clean-cut edge just below his shoulders. The white streak, previously serving to split the black straight down the middle, was now more normally placed as two thinner streaks originating from above and behind the villain's ears. Vlad's blue skin, slightly darker, also had gained a grayish tinge, making him look even more dead than his original ghost form. Instead of solid red, his eyes were normal with a red iris that still glowed with an old menace. The goatee, once neatly trimmed and close-cut, now hung off Vlad's face with about an inch of length. He still wore the white jacket and pants, but the belt holding the jacket shut was gone and it hung loose about his frame, exposing a thin vertical strip of blue skin and the mark of the heartless imprinted small just below the hollow of his throat. The jacket's sleeves were also loose, and Plasmius had lost his black gloves, showing grayish blue hands with a fragment of the Heartless sigil trailing down the back of them from up under the white sleeves. The boots were still black, and they still rose up over the pant legs, but now they had silver trim with a front design, almost reminiscent of the Organization XIII boots. Vlad still had his floor-length cape, though it was now hooded instead of augmented with a high flared collar, and a silver chain held the top around his shoulders. The inner lining was a silvery gray and the exterior had become black with the Heartless symbol prominently displayed.

The Heartless Plasmius turned to face the group of six when Sora shoved the door open.

"Well, well, well; you did survive," he said upon taking note of the presence of Danny, Sam, and Tucker. He turned to the other half of the group. "You must be the Keyblade bearer, Sora."

"Yes!" Sora's Keyblade flashed with reflected light as his hand clenched tightly on the grip. "Beast, come over here!"

"Beast? What an appropriate designation."

Beast growled at the insult as he backed out of Vlad's immediate range and towards the relative safety of Sora's presence.

"Vlad! What are you doing here!?" Danny demanded. His left hand formed a fist that glowed green with a ready ecto-round and his right secured the grip on the black and white keyblade he wielded.

"Why Daniel, you should know the answer to that. Then again, you do not get the best grades in your class, do you?" Danny's breath audibly hissed through his teeth closed tight with anger. "But I suppose I shall tell you anyway; I am doing the very same thing I have always tried to accomplish. With these new powers, of course, it will be all the easier to rule these new worlds, now that Amity Park has been swallowed by the darkness."

"That was your fault!"

"Daniel, don't you remember? You opened the Door, not I. It is your fault Amity Park has fallen!"

Sora started, and glanced back at Danny. He had opened the Door to Darkness? Why had the hero opened it anyway?

Danny shivered with strong emotion and Vlad appeared momentarily pensive before speaking again. "I suppose I should thank you. By opening the Door, you allowed me to get these powers. It seems you have defeated my Heartless today, but don't worry. You have not interrupted my plans."

Before Danny or Sora could consider jumping forward for attack, Vlad spun into a dark hole and vanished from the world.

"Do you know that Heartless?" Beast asked Danny in his growling voice. He had noticed how his attacker addressed Danny specifically as if they knew each other.

"Yeah, we know him," Tucker answered in Danny's place. "His name is Plasmius, though he wasn't a Heartless the last time we saw him. He's been our enemy for a while."

"He said you opened the Door," Sora commented.

". . . I . . . kinda did open it," Danny admitted with difficulty. "We were fighting, and he knocked me into the Door, and it opened somehow. Then all the darkness came flooding out, and our world started collapsing."

"We need to get back to Radiant Garden. The others should know about this too." Sora turned to Beast, who was on his other side. "I haven't seen Belle; is she okay?"

Beast growled an affirmative. "She is hiding safe in her room. The Heartless are gone, so you need not worry about us right now."

"All right. Let's go!" The six ran from the castle and back to Sora's gummy ship.

Sora told Goofy to pilot and moved towards the back of the ship with Danny and to a semi-private corner. Tucker took Goofy's vacated seat, since Goofy had moved to the central pilot's chair, and proceeded to ask an endless series of questions, which Chip and Dale answered through the communications screen. Goofy and Donald had been unable to answer and Donald, caving under the verbal onslaught, summoned the two technicians to save himself.

Sam leaned towards Sora and Danny, taking the place between their corner and the forward piloting area as the two spoke quietly.

"Danny," Sora had opened their conversation, "how did you turn into a Nobody?"

"Those Nobodies at the castle captured me and took me to some strange dark place. There were buildings, and some lights, but the whole place was made of that strange darkness the Nobodies are made of. I could sense it; it was the same feeling as the Nobodies, but much stronger, and everywhere."

"You could sense the Nobodies?"

"Yeah; it felt like . . . my heart, it was . . . being twisted, or something." Danny fidgeted and Sam put a comforting hand on his shoulder. He didn't look at her and instead continued to stare at the keyblade still in his hands. His fingers played the charm about on its chain. "A bunch of them swarmed me and my shield wouldn't hold out. They broke through it, and then me."

"Through you?"

"And to my heart; the darkness . . . pushed it out. It went to my human form, but I wasn't in human form, so I couldn't feel it any more, not really." Sam's hand clenched on Danny's shoulder.

"The Nobodies didn't steal your heart?"

"No; it was in this form, the way I am now, and they couldn't get to it any more."

"When you came back to the castle, you were in your other form, and you looked like an Organization XIII member, but now you look normal and you have your heart still. Are you not really a Nobody?"

"No, when I'm Phantom, I'm definitely a Nobody. I'm not really sure about that Organization XIII or whatever, but . . . . When I was Phantom that time, when I came back, I couldn't feel anything. The only reason I came back was because it was the last thing I remembered. I didn't care about the Heartless, or my friends, or . . . anything at all."

Sam quietly gasped. "That's horrible! No feelings at all."

"No. And then when I changed back, it hurt. All the feelings coming back . . . ."

"How could your heart hide in this form while you were in your other one? Phantom, you said? They'd have to be practically separate."

"What do you mean?" Danny looked up at Sora's face in conclusion. "You can change forms too; I saw you."

"Not exactly. My clothes are magic, and I can change them sometimes if I have enough power for it. They will give me special abilities, but I don't actually change myself."

"Oh. So it's just your clothes."

"Yeah, which is why I don't understand."

"Well, I have two different forms. One is human--me, the way I am now--and the other, Phantom, is not."

"But how can you have a non-human form?"

Sam answered that time. "It was an accident that was my fault."

"You're fault?" Sora looked at Sam for the first time since they'd boarded the Gummy Ship; he'd been focused on Danny the whole time up until now.

"Yeah. Can I tell him, Danny? No one from Amity Park can find out at this point." Sam had to tell herself not to flinch as she said the painful words that reminded them that their world was gone.

"Sure. We can trust you, right? With my secret?"

"Can I tell the Restoration Committee? They'll keep your secret too. Otherwise, if they find out that you're a powerful Nobody like the Organization XIII members and don't know, they might refuse to trust you any more."

Danny sighed. "That's fine. Go ahead, Sam." Danny carefully examined his keyblade to avoid either pair of eyes. The stilled green flames looked almost like a crown, if the crown were on fire.

"We already told you about the Ghost Zone, back at Radiant Garden, right?"

"The Ghost Zone and Amity Park are parallel dimensions, you said. A dual world with connecting holes, like doorways between the two."

"That's right. Danny's parents are inventors, and they studied the Ghost Zone theory for a long time until they eventually designed a Ghost Portal that would give them access to it."

"And they opened it?"

"Not really. They built it, but it didn't work when they tried to turn it on, so Danny, Tucker and I went to check it out. It was my idea, which is why his having a second form is my fault."

"So what happened?"

"Danny went inside. Apparently his dad, who doesn't have much common sense, put the activation switch on the portal's interior. Danny touched it accidently, and it activated while he was still inside. When he came back out of the green vortex that had appeared, he was a ghost. We thought he was dead, and he passed out right away, but then he changed back. Later he named his ghost form Phantom, but he had become half-ghost that day."

"That makes sense, sorta. There were two almost separate forms, but just one heart."

"Now Phantom is a Nobody and isn't connected to my heart any more."

"Normally, when someone loses their heart, they turn into a Heartless and a Nobody might appear from memories. But because your heart went to your human form and didn't escape, there probably isn't a Heartless of you. At least there's that, right?"

"Yeah. It's strange, though; why would Vlad be different? He had two forms like me, but now he's a Heartless."

"I don't know. And I'm not about to go looking just to ask him that."

Danny fell into the silence of inner thoughts. He feared having no heart as Phantom and couldn't help being reminded of Dan, his evil future self. What would Phantom do as an emotionless Nobody? He could let his friends be injured, or worse, and he wouldn't even care! The thought made Danny shiver. And why would it hurt to turn back to his normal form? Is it the shock of his heart coming back? When his heart was removed, it didn't hurt at all because he couldn't feel it any more, but maybe it hurt coming back because all those feelings suddenly return with such force as to actually be painful. The sudden feeling, back at the castle, had shocked him and left him short of breath.

Sora was having thoughts of his own. All the new information about Danny, and two forms and worlds and a single heart and no Heartless from Danny but Vlad was a Heartless and . . . . The King needed to know, and Sora was getting a headache from thinking so many thoughts at once. Maybe the King would understand better, or even Rikku after everything he'd been through.

The conversation had taken enough time that Sora didn't notice it's passage. He was therefore surprised when they arrived at Radiant Garden sooner than expected.

Upon their return to the Restoration Committee headquarters, Tucker, as if drawn by a magnet, went immediately to Tron's computer consol, which Cid vacated in order to avoid being barreled over again. He wasn't working and had only been sitting on the chair, so he didn't mind, and he wanted to hear Sora's report on the condition of Beast's castle anyway.

* * *

Because I have been gone too long from updating this story like I should, I will be posting the next two chapters soon to catch up with what I should have been doing. After suffering writers block for these past three months with continuing past chapter 13, I think I've finally gotten moving again. Chapter 14 will have a special surprise, so look forward to when I finally get there. Four chapters are in between here and there, after all.

If I'm good, chapter 10 will show up next week, and chapter 11 the week after that. Reviews might help me remember better . . . .

Oh, and be glad, because I could have ended this at chapter 12 and made this story be one big 'Door to Darkness Part One,' but I decided to keep the whole thing in one unit and keep going past the point I could have broken it.

And it doesn't have an ending yet . . . so I really need to keep plot-storming. Hunting plot-Nobodies is hard work, after all. They're not like plot-bunnies or plot-ghosts or even plot-Heartless. They're tougher and harder to capture than that, especially since they can't be destroyed in the process.


	10. Warriors Hearts Worlds Hearts

Look, here's the next chapter already, just like I promised.

* * *

キングドムハーツ・化け物ダニー・はじめましょう

"Sora, good, you're back. Riku just sent us a message saying he has important news. He should arrive soon. How was Beast's Castle?" Leon went straight to the point.

"When we arrived, the castle was under siege from Heartless, like the King had told us." Sora noticed that the King was not present and wondered if he was returning with Riku. "Eventually we cleared them all out, and defeated those inside, and found Beast fighting the new Heartless Commander, named Plasmius. He'd come from Amity Park, the same world Danny and his friends came from, and they knew each other. He left after noticing all the Heartless he'd summoned were gone, but before that, he mentioned plans."

"What about Beast and Belle?" Kairi asked, concerned for their safety.

"They were both okay," Sora responded, to her relief.

Leon, about to ask another question, instead turned as the others did at Riku's entrance.

"Riku!" Sora greeted him, delighted, then he saw his face of grave expression. "What's wrong?"

"It's the Nobodies, Sora. Organization XIII is back. A new member was born in their world."

Danny's head shot up. He'd been looking at his shoes again, awaiting the confession of his transformation. "Did he have white hair?"

Riku, surprised, looked at him sharply. "How did you know?"

"And white gloves?"

"Yes, that was unusual. How did you know?"

"At the castle I was kinda captured by the Nobodies and turned into one." Everyone in the room who hadn't already known wore either an alarmed expression or dumbfounded one and they all stared at Danny. A few exclamations also shot into the air.

"But how can this be?" Aeris spoke up. "You appear normal and still have your heart."

"My other form doesn't."

"Your 'other form'? What are you talking about?"

Sora stepped in front of Danny. "I saw him, and what he says is true. Danny and Sam explained to me on the way back. He said I can tell you, but this is a very important secret on his world, so you can't talk about it to other people, okay?"

Everyone around the room nodded.

"Danny has two forms. There was an accident with a portal between the two sides of his dual world, and a dual form of himself was created. Not a separate copy, because he can switch between the two, but he has the human form like he is now and a ghost form called Phantom."

"Appropriate," Leon commented on the name.

"Even with two forms, he only had one heart, so it was shared between them. When the Nobodies captured him, he was in Phantom form, and they broke the connection with his heart, turning Phantom into a Nobody that happens to be powerful enough to take the guise of a member of Organization XIII. Danny didn't lose his heart, though, because it was still connected to his human form, where the Nobodies couldn't get to it since he was Phantom."

"That is an interesting story, Sora. Since Danny did not lose his heart, there probably isn't a Heartless form of him running around."

"That's what I thought."

"It's not entirely different from what happened to you, Sora."

"Me?"

"Sora?" Danny perked up at this bit of information. "What happened to you that's similar?"

"I lost my heart and became a Heartless once. A Nobody of me was formed, but my Heartless found Kairi and she helped me get my heart back. The Nobody didn't disappear; he actually joined Organization XIII, but then he left and disappeared for a while. Eventually we were reunited and remerged, and now he's just a memory." A small smile appeared as Roxas's voice echoed in his head.

"I get the feeling there's more to it, but..."

"But I never had two different forms to start with like you did, Danny."

"At least you still have your heart," Riku told Danny as memories of his own filled his head.

He hadn't lost his heart, not precisely, but he had lost his form to Ansem, the Heartless who'd used him to fight with Sora. Ansem had continued to plague him while he wandered the levels of Organization XIII's stronghold looking for escape, and a final confrontation had rid him of the malevolent presence. Then, while Sora's memories were undergoing restoration with Namine, Riku had allied with DiZ under the guise of an Organization XIII cloak. Events later in the restoration process forced him to resort to dark powers. Though Riku still had his heart, he'd lost his true form and only the Nobody-like skill of the manifestation of a body from memories had given him one akin to his original. When Riku turned to his dark powers once again, he was forced to take the form of Heartless Ansem, since that was the one associated with the powers and since he was forced to manifest his body from memory like a Nobody. A seemingly permanent change resulting from a seemingly permanent choice.

"Hey, Riku, there's something weird." Sora broke into Riku's musing.

"What?"

"The Heartless Commander, Plasmius? Danny said he used to have two forms just like himself, but now he's a Heartless. Why would he be different?"

"I don't know. Perhaps I'll ask the King next time I see him. He might have some ideas."

"What about his plans?" Leon asked. "They are what we should be considering now. Danny, if you knew him, what do you think he wants?"

"He wants to take over and rule worlds. Now he just has more powers to use and more worlds to chose from. His plans really haven't changed. He'd practically taken over out town Amity Park before it . . . ."

"Is there a way we can bring Amity Park back?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, there should be. Riku, Kairi, and I lost our world the same way you did, and we were able to bring it back from the Darkness."

"How did you do that?"

"You remember that old tower in the distance, the one in a big crater?"

"Yeah."

"That used to be called Hollow Bastion and there was a portal there, to the Heartless realm of Darkness. We went in and then found the End of the World; our world, specifically. From there we went and found the Door again and shut it to close that world off from the Darkness. When all the Darkness fled back, or world was restored."

"Could we do the same thing with Amity Park?"

"We can try."

"It doesn't sound too difficult."

"It's definitely harder than it sounds."

"And remember Sam, there's Vlad to deal with, too. He'll probably try to interfere or something when he realizes that we're trying something."

"We've been keeping an eye on the tower, since it was where most of the Heartless appeared on this world," Leon explained, "and there are a few Heartless in the area but not too many. Not like the horde from last time."

"So, let's go," Sam said.

"You should rest," Aeris stalled their plans in a kind and caring voice. "You were fighting earlier today and do not have much energy left."

It dawned on Sam that she did, in fact, feel tired. "Yeah."

"We have spare rooms that you can use here. I'll get you some food, and then you should rest for a few hours. Hollow Bastion will still be there tomorrow." Aeris led them away from the command room, having only minor difficulty with removing Tucker from Tron since he became quickly enamored of her looks.

LINEBREAK

"Wake up! Hundreds of Heartless just appeared at the tower! Wake up, people!"

Danny shot awake, still dazed from sleeping. His first thought was that Vlad had arrived.

* * *

Please review. The next chapter will appear next week.


	11. Hollow Bastion

4000+ WORDS!!! 3 HOURS!!!

Oh, and review the boss fight. I want to know if you like how I did it, because that part took the most effort.

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キングドムハーツ・化け物ダニー・はじめましょう

Sora, Danny, Donald, Sam, Goofy, and Tucker were all running down through the fissure and to the crater Hollow Bastion sat in. Sora had them stop at the 'Safe Disk,' some kind of magic ring on the ground that replenished health and energy, before the entered the crater itself.

"Okay, I don't know how we'll get up this time because the last time I was here this world was more broken and I landed on some floating islands that were up there, closer to the right level." Sora pointed up at the sky. "If we want to figure it out, we need to get rid of all those Heartless first. It's not as many with the siege from last time, but there are still a lot."

Sora stepped on the Safe Ring after Donald stepped off it, then stepped off himself for Tucker, Sam, Goofy, and Danny to each have their turns.

"How do these things get here, anyway?" Sam asked.

"They just seem to appear in places. Back during the first Heartless outbreak, anyway. I asked Merlin about it once, and he said it had something to do with the unstable magic popping up in places. WIth a stable world like this one, though, he fixed the rings into place; some of them, anyway. This one is natural, I guess, and part of the fissure."

"They sure are handy."

"Yeah." Sora looked to the exit. "Ready to go?"

"Let's do this," Danny said, and he summoned his keyblade, black, white, and glowing green.

They were running again, but were forced to stop upon reaching the wall of Heartless in the open area. Even with six of them, it took a while to clear them out to proceed, but they were off running again once the Heartless in that location were gone. The fissure narrowed and continued ahead, but Danny almost tripped over when Sora came to a sudden stop. Tucker did fall over, and Sam helped him back up.

"Why'd we stop?"

"There's a deep drop off right around this corner. It leads to the crater, but we can't just jump down. Do any of you know how to glide yet?"

"Gliding?" Sam thought it was some kind of magic. She'd been trying to learn from Donald, but he wasn't the best teacher for anything past basic skills. His temper was hazardous.

"Yeah, It's like flying, but not."

"I can do that, but . . . ." Danny didn't finish speaking. It was true that he could still fly in human form, but he wasn't nearly as capable as when he was Phantom.

"We can't," Tucker said, eyeing the drop off nervously.

"We'll carry you two, then," Sora said.

"I can only carry one of you," Danny told his friends. In emergencies, it was true he could carry them both, and more, but that was as Phantom and only on the short term. Flying so far as a human, and carrying someone . . .

"I'll do it!" Goofy spoke up.

"Great! Can you carry Tucker, then? And Danny, you carry Sam. We need to get all the way to the rooftops of those buildings that surround the tower. Hopefully we'll just make it."

Sora and Donald leapt off the edge first, taking a high flying leap and then leveling out to a gradual glide. Goofy picked up Tucker and went next, frightening the dark skinned teen who was only used to the abnormality of his friend and was even frightened when Danny carried him. Sam hugged Danny tightly as he copied Sora's leap almost exactly, activating his ghost flight as his feet left the ground. It took him higher than Sora's jump had, but he was soon flying in the back of the line, slightly higher than the rest of them. He focused on moving forward and not up, so he also slowly fell as Sora and his friends did.

With Phantom turned into a Nobody, Danny's powers seemed even more restricted than before, though they were still usable. It wasn't as bad as when his powers were still new, at least.

Danny and Sam reached the base of the tower itself and had to wait for the other four, who'd approached lower and were a few buildings out. It didn't take them long to catch up, but Sam and Danny had already been looking around for a way up.

"What about those?" Sam pointed out some hanging bars that disappeared out of sight from up above.

"Those are for the lifts that used to be here. They aren't active, but if the bars are still there we might be able to use them." Sora eyed the dark blue rods. If he remembered correctly, they led to a lower side entrance of the interior of Hollow Bastion.

"We'll have to climb up the side of the tower a bit if we want to jump and reach them," Danny commented, thinking about distance. "I'll go up first, and check it out."

Danny climbed up easily, finding plenty of handholds in the rough surface of the tower's base. The five heads watching him slowly tilted back as he climbed higher.

When Danny stopped for a few minutes and looked around, then progressed no further, Sora yelled up to him, "What is it?"

Danny looked down. "I think I'm high enough, so I'll try it now. I can't find any good handholds close by anyway, to get any higher." Danny appeared to fidget, then adjusted his feet against the solid wall of the tower, bracing himself to jump. He let go with one hand to hang away from the wall and adjusted his balance so that when he leapt, he would hit the bar. A moment's pause while everyone held their breath, and then he leapt, grabbing the bar and swinging around it to the other side before stopping himself. He had only a few feet to spare.

"I'm good!" he shouted back down with a thumbs up that they could barely make out. "Come on, the bar is close enough!"

At that, Sora started his climb, followed by Sam, then Donald, then Goofy and Tucker. Goofy had to carry Tucker again, and he also stayed below Donald to give the feathered friend a helpful push now and then as they progressed up the side of the tower. Donald couldn't reach very far after all. Danny locked his legs around the bar so he wouldn't move and waited for them to reach him.

He slid down to the very end when Sora was ready. He'd be able to catch anyone if they didn't quite make it.

Sora hit the bar exactly where Danny had, head on, so he didn't swing around. The bar jerked, though, with the force of his impact, but he quickly recovered and proceeded to shimmy up the bar after securing his grip. Several feet up he paused for a rest, which was when Sam made her leap. Danny had to hang down further when she nearly kicked him in the face, and he very carefully avoided looking up her skirt as she climbed up after Sora, who started moving again after the bar shook.

Danny had to catch Donald and then hold him when he couldn't grip the bar very well. Goofy, even though he was carrying Tucker, hit the bar fine, though he had Tucker climb up on his own once he was there. Donald clung tightly to Danny's back as they finally climbed up to the top, which took definitely longer than the climb up the tower itself had. They got to see an awesome view, anyway, and gazed out at it every time they stopped to rest.

Everyone wished the lifts still worked, except for Danny, who wished he could use his ghost powers normally and just fly up.

Eventually they reached the top, where a short jump away landed them on an outer platform with a dark, old-looking entrance to the interior.

They all sat and rested for a few minutes, tired from climbing. Their break lasted until a flying Heartless came around and spotted them. Donald fried it with lightning magic, but they all went inside at that point.

Next to meet their eyes was the lift station, a circular room with several platforms at different levels and numerous dead lifts still hanging on their bars.

"We need to get up there now," Sora pointed at the highest ledge. They were, of course, on the very lowest one.

It was easier going, even with the dead lifts in the way, because the bars were short. On the closest ledges, Danny and Sora were even able to jump directly up to the next level, skipping the bars entirely. They were also able to take frequent, short breaks, and they reached the top level with more energy than they'd entered the room with.

"Please tell me we don't have to do that any more," Tucker pleaded as they went through the doorway again and into what looked like an entrance hall.

"I don't think so," Sora told him, but there are still stairs.

Tucker groaned comically and Sam snickered at him.

Sora continued leading them through the tower, up levels, through strange rooms, back around outside sometimes, and even up one more dead lift bar, proving Sora's earlier statement wrong. All along the way they had to fight Heartless, though they saw no Nobodies and no Heartless Plasmius.

Eventually they reached another main entrance, one much grander than the first, lower entrance had seemed.

"This is it," Sora said as he looked up at the closed doors. "It's through here." He remembered the last time he was here, where he'd fought Riku again, and lost his heart, but got it back.

Danny, Goofy, and Donald set against the door and slowly pushed it open. The hallway immediately beyond the doors was lined with empty pedestals, but no one commented on them. The hallway opened to a round room with two curved staircases leading up to a higher platform. A control station of some kind followed the outer edge, and against the back wall was a strangely shaped doorway swirling with malevolent energy. The energy looked cracked and slightly broken, though it continued to shift dizzyingly regardless.

In front of the Dark Door, which Danny realized was shaped like the Heartless symbol, was one Heartless; Plasmius himself. He had been shooting energy at the door, trying to break it open further, but he turned around when the group came in.

"I was wondering when you'd show up," he said by way of greeting. "What took you so long? Climbing too tough?"

Danny glared, and his eyes flashed colors. Vlad laughed. "Of course! You want to fight me. Ha!" He waved his hand, and several very strong Heartless surrounded the group. Danny had never seen their like before, but Sora had and they were some of the strongest he knew. The number they had been summoned with would prove a challenge. A few Nobodies, lower level, appeared belatedly, drawn by the energy instead of summoned by Vlad, who couldn't call up Nobodies anyway. He'd have to be a Nobody himself to do that.

Danny seemed to hunker down slightly, tensing, and the grip on his keyblade tightened convulsively. Then the white rings appeared. Sam and Tucker realized that they were no longer smoothly glowing as they quickly moved up and down. The flickering, spiky white trails of Nobody essence were woven through.

Vlad didn't notice the little detail, and Sora, Goofy, and Donald wouldn't know any different, but they couldn't help but look at Phantom's new Nobody form, draped as it was in Organization XIII clothes. Vlad really noticed that.

"You've changed too, apparently. No matter! Fight me, Daniel, and I will show you I still have more strength than you ever will!"

Much to Vlad's surprise, Phantom did not verbally respond to the taunt. He attacked silently, without further warning, and leapt straight up to the platform, ignoring the stairs completely. The Heartless and Nobodies all exploded into motion as Plasmius created a barrier around the platform, cutting himself and Phantom off.

Plasmius, initially his normal cocky self, became unnerved a few minutes into the fight. Phantom still hadn't said a word, and his fighting had an emotionless, deadly precision. It was a different level from the Daniel he knew, and Vlad wondered just what had happened. He knew the boy wasn't a Heartless like him--he could sense that, in the same way he sensed ghosts--but something was different, almost wrong.

It was almost like feeling not, if the word 'not' had a feeling of its own. He'd think about it more later; right now he had a much bigger challenge than he'd anticipated. None of the thoughts reached his face, and he maintained his confident exterior, not that it had any effect on Phantom. He just continued fighting.

The five fighters below steadily defeated the powerful Heartless one by one with Sora and Sam focusing on attacking a specific enemy and Tucker, Goofy, and Donald defending them against the others.

NX Phantom--which is how the Nobody thought of himself--had paused to glance briefly around as Plasmius created the barrier to prevent his escape and the others' interference right after he'd leapt up to the platform.

Plasmius attacked him first, firing an ecto-shot, which missed widely as NX Phantom dodged it. With that detached feeling of a Nobody, he realized he didn't remember ever having this focus or combat attention. He remembered always having a distraction of some kind, usually the worry of his friends' safety. That no longer bothered him, so he would be unhindered fighting Plasmius. Besides, a barrier was in the way.

Instead of firing a return shot, or doing anything else ghostly, he lunged in close and took a swipe at the Heartless with his keyblade, which had reversed in color again. The attack missed, but by a narrower margin than Vlad's attack, and Vlad, unable to block in time, had been forced to dodge instead. NX Phantom followed a step and swung again, with a horizontal strike, which Plasmius leapt into the air to avoid. He stayed in the air and tried flying over his opponent, who immediately followed the first attack with three rapid ecto-shots to the back, all of which scored but failed to make Plasmius falter in the air since they didn't do much damage.

Plasmius created a blade weapon in his hands, made partially of ecto-energy and partially of darkness, giving it a strange black color with a green edge and a Heartless-shaped hilt and guard. It was like a long, double-edged sword with the stereotypical diamond shape.

The new weapon was swung at NX Phantom's head, but he blocked the strike with his keyblade, causing a sharp noise. Vlad chained into another strike, and then a third one, which set Danny off-balance. He couldn't take advantage of the opportunity, however, because he had to avoid the green scythe of energy that would have cut him in half if he'd tried. As it was, the edge of it caught him on the leg, which abruptly twitched away in pain.

Danny recovered his balance with a spin that gave his keyblade extra momentum when he swung it again. Vlad guarded against it, but the strike hit him with force that threw him into his barrier. He managed to fire off a large ecto-shot upon hitting the wall, which hit the temporarily exposed Nobody as the swing of the keyblade carried through.

Danny stumbled back a step and Vlad touched back on the ground, only to immediately lunge forward while Danny was recovering, going for a direct stab. NX Phantom was forced to block, and the tip of the sword hit the ground between his feet.

With their positions locked at that instant, Plasmius created three clones of himself and jumped back so the clones could attack simultaneously. Seeing this, NX Phantom twisted to the side and created a single clone to stand at his back--one clone is all Danny Phantom had been able to do as of yet--and the two counterattacked before the clones could react. With his keyblade still aimed down, Danny pulled it up sharply and hit one clone directly between the legs, carrying the strike further up. The doppleganger flung his keyblade out wide and then pulled it back in high and sideways to hit another clone on the side of the head, forcing him around and into the barrier, where the keyblade impacted with an additional, belated force.

The two clones made a popping sound as the broke and vanished. Unable to strike again in time, the doppleganger and original leapt apart and the clone's missed attack flew between them. As the clone turned around to try again, it was hit in the chest and abdomen by two keyblades simultaneously and thrust against the barrier as his second brethren had been. The third clone disappeared with a third pop, and the doppleganger disintegrated into black and white Nobody strands that melded back into NX Phantom.

Vlad glared, effectively thwarted with an attack that was almost always successful in the past. Two scythe attacks were fired at him and he blocked them with the flicker of a shield that didn't stay a moment longer. He shot forward for another close attack and chained it to a second, just like he had the first time. Blocked both times, he held at the second attack this time and used it as a feint to fire a charged ecto-beam into Danny's stomach, which made him hit the barrier only a step behind him as the pinkish energy was sustained for a few seconds.

The breath of NX Phantom whooshed out in a cold gust, visible as a faint mist, and he looked up at Plasmius with a concentrating expression on his face and pale blue eyes. A moment upon recovering from that attack, he swung his free arm, glowing with a sudden blue haze, up with his hand open flat, and the thin column of ice exploded up from beneath Vlad, smashing him against the domes barrier ceiling which made the ice shatter. He would have hit the ground a second later if there hadn't been a chained attack with the keyblade that hit him squarely broadside and flung him across the platform to crash into the base of his barrier.

So much good that barrier was doing him. Also, NX Phantom was beating him soundly with his unrestrained potential. Why was Danny like that!? Why did he seem so emotionless, like he had no heart at all!? His expression hadn't changed, and there had been no banter of any kind. Why was this Danny so different? He'd seemed normal before changing forms.

As much of a conundrum as that provided for Vlad, he really should be focusing on the fight, which he was still in the middle of.

He dodged the ecto-shots and following keyblade swing as Danny jumped forward again and fired a scythe attack like Danny's at the back of his head. It hit, making his head jerk forward and causing him to stumble a step, which he tried to cover with a spin.

Plasmius, while he was in the air and still had the advantage, fired several ecto-shots in rapid succession and with some small variety, not all of which his target could defend himself against. Several hits scored and Danny hit the barrier behind him that he'd thrown Vlad into just before.

NX Phantom shook himself and refocused on Vlad, who was charging another single powerful strike. He took too long, though, because before he could fire it, NX Phantom had jumped up with energy and in a ghostly fashion, holding his position in the air as he struck from below and to the side, lifting Vlad up and making the ecto-shot misfire to the side. Pulling the keyblade back, he spun and struck again, this time from high and on the other side, throwing Vlad to the ground.

Plasmius landed on his feet, but the force of the attack made him stagger almost to his knees, and he barely blocked the next attack, which pressed down heavily on his guard.

It lasted just slightly too long, and Plasmius realized that his feint attack was being used against him. An instant later the bright ecto-beam hit him in the chest and propelled him into his barrier again. The beam wasn't sustained as long as his had been when he'd used the trick, but NX Phantom had managed to somehow summon up a bigger punch in the brief moment before hand. Vlad realized belatedly that he'd prepared it in the beginning and held it ready for the right moment.

Plasmius grudgingly admitted that Danny wasn't as much of an idiot as he'd always taunted him to be.

He wasn't going to win, he realized. NX Phantom had the advantage, and Plasmius just wasn't going to win. He hated it, but he needed to retreat and recover. When he checked his sense of the Heartless beyond the barrier, he discovered them all defeated. Danny's five companions had been able to witness the end of the fight.

Plasmius immediately dragged the barrier down and fired a few cover shots at the Nobody, which he was forced to defend himself against. The distraction served for his escape, and he vanished into a black portal that winked out right behind him.

The silence echoed loudly in the sudden stillness of ended battle.

"He won't be back right away," Sam said to break the silence first, "not after that."

Danny seemed to relax to a more normal stance, but he didn't change back just yet. He was still on guard against potential sneak attacks.

"Here's the Door we need," Sora said, walking up to it past NX Phantom and aiming his Keyblade at it. A beam of energy was fired from it, and the Door was repaired and just as locked as it had been before. Danny walked up to it and touched a hand to the seemingly solid surface. The Nobody darkness he commanded seeped into the Door and expanded, opening it safely. It was still just as closed to the Heartless-type darkness that would only be able to go through from the side the six were on and in a tangible form. Not that any of the six would allow that to happen of course.

Sora tried not to frown at the Door. "Beyond that, we'll be able to access your world, Amity Park, and any others that have fallen to the Darkness." He looked at them all. They all looked back at him, even the Nobody Danny.

Sam stepped forward.

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I have the Kingdom Hearts II OST and I was listening to it while writing this. The song selection is on random, but can you guess what song started playing when I started writing the boss fight?

One Winged Angel!

I was amazing, with that timing. It played again as I was finishing the fight, too.

I think it's amazing, anyway.

REVIEW THE BOSS FIGHT!!!

And anything else in the chapter that catches your fancy, of course.

It's 0115 in the morning, and I wrote this in approximately four hours straight.


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